Lapidary of the National Museum – National Museum
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About the Lapidary
Lapidary of the National Museum preserves one of the richest collections of stone sculptures in the Czech Republic and is one of the oldest specialized collections of its kind in the Czech lands. It concentrates stonework, architectural and sculptural works from the early Middle Ages to historicism, from a long period from the 11th to the very end of the 19th century. However, the National Museum was established in 1818 and in 1839 the museum’s historian and outstanding official František Palacký emphasized in the museum program the importance of preserving and collecting stone originals from fading architectural monuments, especially monuments, tombstones and reliefs. Some exhibits, which we can admire in the Ladarium today, were already in 1846, there is no Nostic Palace Na Příkopech in the museum premises today. In occasion Jubilee state exhibitions in Prague in 1891 a Czechoslovak ethnographic exhibitions In 1895, other collection items were collected, which became in 1898 on the basis of the Exhibition of Monuments of Old Architecture on Exhibition of Architecture and Engineering, organized at the Prague Exhibition Grounds. The exhibition was installed in the originally neo-renaissance Pavilion of the Retrospective Exhibition built by the architect Antonín Wiehl for the Jubilee Exhibition in 1891, which still provides space for the Lapidary collection after a neo-baroque reconstruction and a number of alterations. Part of the reconstruction of the pavilion in 1908 is, among other things, the Art Nouveau sculptural decoration of the building’s exterior by František Hergessel.
Collectibles concentrated in the Lapidary come mostly from Prague and Central Bohemia. Valuable and valuable exhibits were protected and handed over to the National Museum during the reconstruction of the buildings and the demolition of the entire city districts. Therefore, the museum acquired the most numerous sets of stone and sculptural works approximately in the years 1890 to 1930, during the period of the so-called redevelopment of old Prague. Irreplaceable monuments come from demolished churches (St. Vitus Cathedral, Vyšehrad), aristocratic palaces and burgher houses, but also archaeological or building surveys (Ostrov Monastery, St. Agnes of Bohemia Monastery). Due to modernization and traffic, monuments and fountains preventing the traffic of new crossroads and tram routes receded from Prague’s streets to the museum (Krocín’s Fountain on Old Town Square, St. Wenceslas Monument with a Fountain on the Horse Market, Marshal Radecký’s Monument on Malostranské Square). Monuments and associated with the Habsburg monarchy found their asylum in the Lapidary, which were spontaneous or deliberately removed after the declaration of independence of the Czechoslovak Republic in 1918 (Mariánský on the Old Town Square, Monument to Francis I.). A number of rare statues have also recently been influenced by the Lapidary’s collections as a result of the replacement of the originals with their copies (sculptural decoration of the Old Town Bridge Tower and Charles Bridge).
The first solo exhibition The lapidary prepared by museum staff Jan Koula and Václav Fabián was opened in 1905, but after the outbreak of World War 1914 it was closed. The Lapidarium was reopened to the public after many years in 1932. At the time, the modern exhibition served the public only until 1939, when its operation ended in the war years. The Lapidary’s collections were reopened between 1954 and 1967. The current form of the exhibition has lasted since 1993, and its organization and selection of exhibits make it one of the leading European collections of its kind. In 1995, it was awarded in the competition for the best European museum of the year. The Lapidary premises also serve for the presentation of art projects, lectures and concerts.